Porn stars from an Australian
background include Gerry Pike, Diedre Holland, Sunny McKay, Kelly Blue
and Alice Springs. The two most famous, Pike and Holland, have spent at
least half their lives in other countries. Of the remaining three, Sunny
McKay lasted the longest in porn, showing up frequently in early '90s
productions.

John T. Bone discovered
Sunny MacKay during his 1989 trip down under for Parliament Video. Her
first video was 1989's Behind Blue Eyes 3. She turns in a great performance
with Rocco Siffredi in Buttman's European Vacation. She features in about
100 videos including Buttman's Ultimate Workout and Diedre in Danger.

It is not legal in any
of Australia's seven states to sell porn, though the two federal territories
offer it and do a thriving business via the mail. Many sex shops in the
bigger cities also offer hardcore tapes without much harassment from police.

Carl Brewer wrote: "You
can only _legally_ sell X rated material from the ACT or the Northern
"Territory. The rules about mail-order are ambiguous and thus exploited.
It is possible (quite easy ...) to buy X videos in most states too, even
though it's technically illegal. The police probably realize that the
law's bullshit, and that it's only there to placate the loony fringers.

"After a decent round
of legalisation of videos and books (but not prostitution) in the 1970s,
X-rated videos were made illegal again in the 1980s in all the six Australian
States. The trend started in Western Australia - the politician responsible
has since been gaoled, but not for this particular crime - and spread
to the other five quickly (Queensland - under one of the world's most
insane right-wing Government in the 1970s and 1980s never had legalised
them). Prostitution, however, has been legalised in most States; and books
and mags have not been banned (except in Queensland). So it is all right
to watch still pictures of it, and all right to do it, but not all right
to watch videos! Sheer madness." (RAME)

Auburngirl wrote on RAME:
"I think we're a lot luckier in Australia than you might think! I've been
to a few U.S. cities and I was amazed at how restrictive somethings are.
Like table top dancing is a big deal and prostitution is often disguised
as "massage". Any Aussie that wants XXX vids can usually go to a local
"adult" store and rent them over the counter, (certainly in Melbourne,
Sydney, Brisbane and the other big cities). Brothels are legal, licensed
and pretty clean, safe places. Most forms of sexual entertainment are
fairly easily available. Which is just to say the legal situation may
look a mess, but it works pretty well in allowing most things without
condoning the worst corollaries of adult entertainment such as child porn,
violence, STDs etc."

Pat Riley replied: "As
an expatriate Australian who last lived there in 1973 (I went back for
a couple of weeks in 1992) I'm very disapointed to hear this. Have they
really abandoned all hope of having the girls see sex like males see sex
and put out just because they enjoy it?

"What kind of society
are you (we if some of the people here have their way) headed for? A group
of females dispassionately f--- for short term money (hookers) and another
for long-term support (married women) with no one in between. Males used
as drones in both cases. Not a society I want to live in."

On April 28, 1991, the
Sydney Sun Herald published this recent speech by Independent MP (Member
of Parliament) Dennis Stevenson before the ACT Legislative Assembly (Australia's
capitol city of Canberra):

THE X-rated video industry,
though most obvious in the ACT, is a problem which confronts all Australians
.. .

I intend to show that
vast profits are made from pornography, that its huge cash flow is highly
attractive to organised crime figures, that there is an inter-linking
web of companies and identities throughout Australia that are strongly
connected to organised crime, particularly in the areas of drugs, prostitution
and pornography.

I intend to show that
the X-rated video pornographic industry is strongly linked with drugs,
violence, fraud and corruption and that criminals have been protected
and have been allowed to prosper because we have maintained the ACT as
a safe house from which they can thumb their noses at the State laws which
make their activities illegal.

I intend to show that
much of the impetus for the porn industry in Australia has come from leading
Mafia figures in the US and that further there is a direct connection
between the video trade in the ACT and organised crime in the US.

The question that remains
unanswered for many people throughout Australia is: Why have X-rated pornographic
videos not been banned in the ACT when they are illegal in every single
one of the States in Australia?

It is a question that,
I believe, will not be asked for very much longer. I want to now describe
the US organised crime connection .. .

THE first version of the
private video market in Australia began in the 1970s with legal Betamax
copies of porn videos being purchased in the US, sent to Australia and
subsequently copied illegally and sold furtively in limited quantities
throughout Australia.

US organised crime figures
visited Australia in the 1970s and several times in 1980 and 1981 to set
up an organised pornography industry here in Australia.

In the 1980s the representatives
were Norman Arno and Theodore Gaswirth, both of whom were leading identities
in organised crime in the US.

The activities of Arno
and Gaswirth in the US are most relevant, particularly their involvement
in a pornography racket, turning over some$US4billion a year, a figure
estimated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.. .

In the US in February
1980, the largest-ever crackdown on pornographers was undertaken by a
special force of 400 agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation ..
.

Over a dozen warehouses
were raided and literally tonnes of pornographic material was seized ...
54 arrests were made in Los Angeles, Miami and other places.

Norman Arno was arrested
as one of the ringleaders of the porn racket. Arno was the president of
the North Hollywood-based VCX Incorporated, a US Mafia -linked porn company
which in 1985 controlled 40 per cent of the US porn market which has been
estimated to be worth $US9billion a year.

Ed Krasnof, who was vice-
president of VCX Incorporated, was named as being another organised crime
figure during the Los Angeles investigation by the FBI.

Norman Arno, together
with his associate Theodore Gaswirth, were named by the Organised Crime
Control Commission of California as organised crime figures connected
with a number of pornography operations in southern California. In that
report, Arno was described as the business partner of Michael Zaffarano,
a member of the New York Mafia . The Californian commission named Zaffarano
as the main link between porn operations in California and Mafia groups
on the East Coast of America .. .

Theodore Gaswirth, who
was also named as a Mafia association of Michael Zaffarano, made three
trips to Australia in 1981. The first was for five days in late January,
the second for another five days in June, and the third for eight days
in December.

Like Arno and earlier
Mafia visitors to Australia, Gaswirth did not come to put another shrimp
on the barbie, but rather to set up criminal connections and operations.

Another of Gaswirth's
partners in his US pornography operations was Jacob Molinas, a Californian
organised crime figure who was murdered.

Shortly after Arno's arrest,
Arno applied to the court to have bail conditions relaxed so that he could
visit Australia. Arno subsequently flew into Australia on 21 May 1980.
During his stay of 15 days, Arno held meetings with Australian associates
in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.

INITIAL corporate connections
between Australian identities and the Mafia were made by Daniel M Stein,
an associate of Meyer Lansky. Lansky was one of the US Mafia leaders who
was responsible for much of the overall direction of the Mafia .

The investigative reporter
Bob Bottom, in reporting the Stein connection in his book Connections
II, wrote that Stein visited Australia a number of times between March
1971 and April 1976, and had dealings with that well-known Sydney criminal
George Freeman .. .

To give a summary of the
US connection so far, we have seen that Norman Arno and his associate
Theodore Gaswirth were recognised by the FBI as leading organised crime
figures in the US and members of the Colombo Family, one of five Mafia
families controlling crime in New York. We have seen that Arno and Gaswirth
had recently been arrested for illegal porn operations and that they then
came to Australia to set up operations distributing pornography.

I have here Norman Arno's
signature on a licence agreement with a company now operating in Fyshwick.
But let me state it more clearly: it clearly shows a connection between
Arno, the US Mafia racketeer, and our own ACT .. .

THE main contact in Australia
for Arno and Gaswirth was Alexander Gajic, who, together with his father
Todor Gajic, were directors of Sienna Pty Ltd, a company formed in South
Australia and now operating at Fyshwick in the ACT in association with
the businesses Australian United Videos and Private Screenings Home Video.

Private Screenings Home
Video were run by Gajic and Barry Taylor. This was admitted on a Four
Corners television program called X-rated. Taylor had been arrested in
Asia for crimes connected with drugs and had escaped initially to Hong
Kong.

Alexander Gajic was named
by Justice Woodward during the 1980 NSW Royal Commission on Drugs as a
major player in the drug ring established by Bruce"Snapper" Cornwell and
Barry Bull.

Gajic also traded with
Adivi Trading Nominees Pty Limited, one of its directors being Bruce "Snapper"
Cornwell. Cornwell was described as a drug baron by Justice Stewart at
the Australian inquiry into drugs in 1985 and was convicted in 1988 ...
Cornwell is currently serving a long jail sentence ..

Alexander Gajic confessed
to dealing in both marijuana and heroin in testimony to the Woodward Commission.
Gajic was not charged for drug-dealing offences as a result of his admissions.
Evidence given before a royal commission cannot be used to convict the
witness giving it.

Together with Joseph David
Shellim, Gajic operated a web of companies which dealt in pornography
across Australia. These companies included Curbydex Pty Ltd, Mr X-Video,
and Hollywood House Video.

Joseph Shellim and his
brother Freddie initially operated Hollywood House Video in Melbourne,
but now they and Hollywood House Video are based in Sydney.

The Victorian office of
Curbydex Pty Ltd, which, as we have seen, was operated by Gajic and Shellim,
was located in Bay Street, Brighton, at premises owned by Esmond Mooseek.
Mooseek is serving a life sentence as a major drug-runner.

Gajic's companies spread
until TAG Video, a company named after the initial letters of Todor and
Alexander Gajic, was used to distribute pornographic videos supplied by
the Mafia -operated video company VCX, the president of which, as we have
seen, was Norman Arno.

ORGANISED crime figures
in the US and Australia have been able to put on a face of respectability
by using the proceeds of criminal activities to buy into legitimate businesses.

This gives them the opportunity
to launder money and also to hide illegal activities behind a facade of
legitimacy.

Organised crime in Australia
has created an interlocking series of companies to provide a corporate
shell to dispose of illegal money by shuffling it backwards and forwards,
through fake invoices and borrowings, until it gets lost in the paper
trail.

This is outlined by Mr
Douglas Meagher, senior counsel assisting the Costigan Royal Commission,
when he spoke at the Law Reform Commission Conference in Perth .. .

In attempting to expand
his pornographic dealings and US connections, Alexander Gajic instructed
Melbourne solicitor Leon Zwier to travel to the US to buy porn titles
for Gajic to distribute in Australia. Among Gajic's written instructions
to Zwier was a report on Al Tapper, the president of CPLC.

In his instructions to
Zwier, Gajic wrote:

"Speak to him, he's a
top bloke, who virtually controls the West Coast market in pornographic
books and accessories. I will be importing books, etc, from him as well,
as soon as I get more cash together. He knows Australia well, being a
friend of Abe Saffron. His attitude is always cash up front."

Leon Zwier was a partner
in the firm of solicitors in Melbourne, Harding, Brereton and Shiff, which
has since ceased to operate. Expenses in the US and Zwier's fees were
paid by Gajic.

It was reported in The
National Times newspaper of 6 October 1983 that TAG Video distributed
pornographic videos in Australia in connection with Unicorn Video, one
of a large network of companies operated by Gerald Gold in Melbourne.
The Australian Tax Office yesterday petitioned for Gold's bankruptcy in
the Federal Court.

Gold was associated with
Mark Arthur Clarkson. Clarkson was charged with murder after it was alleged
that he hired former stand-over man Christopher Dale Flannery to murder
Melbourne barrister Roger Wilson.

Clarkson was acquitted
of murder, but convicted of fraud in connection with the collapse of the
Athena Building Society in Victoria and given a 10-year sentence from
which he has recently been paroled. These very people are linked with
the X-video trade in the ACT.

Clarkson was an associate
of Gerald Arthur Hercus, operator of the Canberra- based companies involved
in pornography, Leisure Moments International and Leisuremail. In a brief
to counsel for the Clarkson trial Hercus said he had regularly lent amounts
of money totalling some $100,000 to Clarkson and that he, Hercus, was
also a business acquaintance of Gerry Gold.

Gerry Gold made use of
a corrupt accountant Charles Maxwell McCready to assist in Gold's money
laundering activities. This was revealed in evidence to the Costigan Royal
Commission and continued until McCready was arrested for conspiring to
free two drug offenders from Pentridge Jail with a helicopter.

The plan involved landing
a helicopter on the tennis courts one Sunday lunchtime and departing with
criminals on board. McCready was convicted and sentenced to seven years
in Pentridge Jail .. .

The parent company for
the Shellim/Gajic network was Trishon Nominees Pty Ltd. One of its directors
being Amos Kormornick, who was connected to another trust which had as
a director, Esmond Mooseek, who as was mentioned earlier, owned the building
in which Gajic and Shellim operated Curbydex Pty Ltd.

Mooseek was extradited
from Thailand in 1989 and convicted on charges relating to importing $A20million
worth of drugs to Australia. Mooseek is currently serving 25 years in
jail.

Kormornick operated a
business which imported figurines in Thailand. Kormornick will be remembered
as the person who used the hollow figurines to smuggle heroin and hashish
oil into Australia. As a result of this activity, Kormornick was convicted
for drug offences in 1988 and is currently in jail.

THE biggest group in the
pornographic video industry in Australia was the video and publishing
empire run by Joseph Shellim, Alexander Gajic and Gerald Gold, all named
as eastern States organised crime figures at the Costigan Royal Commission
in 1983.

Royal Commissioner Costigan
warned us about them, but we haven't yet taken the action necessary to
close down their activities in the ACT .. .

This contract was made
between the Australian company Sienna Pty Ltd and the US organised crime
company, VCX for Sienna to pay $30,000 for the rights to duplicate and
sell pornographic X-rated videos.

This contract was for
12 videos and it granted Sienna the right to operate as agents for VCX
in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and an area including Antarctica.
The three-year contract, dated 1 October 1985, was signed for Sienna by
Todor Gajic under the name Tom Gadjic and for VCX by Norman Arno .. .

I mention the New Zealand
connection. Using the licensing rights granted by the Mafia , Gajic sold
video copying rights to a New Zealand company, Pro Equity Entertainments
Pty Ltd, based at Herne Bay in Auckland.

A major organised crime
syndicate in Australia headed by a group of businessmen was identified
in 1983 by Mr Douglas Meagher, counsel assisting Painters and Dockers
Royal Commissioner Frank Costigan, QC.

Mr Meagher said the group
was "untouched by law enforcement agencies". Why?One reason is that organised
criminals cover their underhand dealings by laundering money through legal
businesses. If we are to be serious in attempting to control organised
crime and its insidious undermining of judges, police and politicians,
then we must take the actions necessary to limit or stamp out one of their
favoured activities, the trade in X-rated video pornography .. .

Pornography in the US
is controlled by organised crime. We have learnt of the identities of
some of the major crime figures in America who profit from pornography.
We can see that Norman Arno and Theodore Gaswirth came to Australia with
the intention of setting up similar contacts and operations as those they
run in the US.

We have learnt of the
connections that Arno and Gaswirth made with criminals in Australia. These
criminals, like their US counterparts, are also involved in drugs, prostitution,
fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and control of both the legal and
illegal porn video trade. Does anyone doubt that these same people control
the illegal porn trade in Australia?

These Canberra identities
have once more proven by their actions of advertising illegal material
in each and every State that has outlawed X-rated videos, that they hold
nothing but contempt for the law.

We have seen the web of
interlinking criminals in Australia that might make one ask: Why are all
these criminals so closely associated with each other? I believe the answer
is: That is why it is called organised crime.

These criminals are organised.
What we need to do, as lawmakers, is to organise against them. We need
to put aside party affiliations or personal conflicts and do our utmost
to act in the best interests of all Australians and ban these X-rated
videos that are currently protected in the ACT .. .

POTNOGRAPHY:
NOBODY CAUGHT IN THE ACT

By Sheryle Bagwell

12/11/87

Australian Financial Review

Page 5

Copyright of John Fairfax
Group Pty Ltd

DR DICK Klugman has watched
more blue movies than he cares to remember. "I must admit I don't watch
the whole film any more, I just can't be bothered,"he says. "Maybe it
has to do with my medical background, but actually seeing penises and
vaginas doesn't add or subtract anything as far as I'm concerned."

As chairman of the Federal
Joint Select Committee on Video Material, the NSW Labor MP has also sat
through hours of R-rated violence and obscenities of the kind that would
never make it past the Commonwealth Film Censor.

Since the committee was
formed in March 1985 after the States (except the ACT and the Northern
Territory) banned the sale and exhibition of X-rated videos, it has amassed
more than 3,000 pages of evidence from 24 public hearings.

The questions under investigation
are the perennial ones of censorship: Should adults be allowed to watch
what they like? To what extent are children at risk? And which poses the
greater threat: violence or explicit sex?

The debate has set Labor
committee member against Labor committee member, Liberal against Liberal
- which largely explains why the committee of nine has sat for so long.

The final report is unlikely
to be tabled before February despite a "hurry up" from the Prime Minister.
The addition of three new members this year has meant some last-minute,
late-night sessions at the Film Censorship Board "to watch a bit of porno,
as my daughter likes to put it," said Dr Klugman.

Legislation covering the
sale of videos was introduced in 1984. It created an additional rating
above restricted called extra-restricted or X to cover explicit sex while
relegating straight "classifiable" violence and soft-core sex to the R
rating. But the sight of blue movie "classics" like Debbie Does Dallas
II and Lust on the Orient Express on the shelves of corner video stores
was relatively short-lived.

Within months, the State
Attorneys-General facing elections and public campaigns mounted by the
National Party and the Festival of Light-sponsored visit by Britain's
Mary Whitehouse, banned the sale and public exhibition of X-rated videos
- although this might be news to those who frequent peep show videos in
the various establishments along Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross, and Fitzroy
Street, St Kilda.

However, since the bans
did not extend to the ACT or the Northern Territory, the industry simply
changed address and boosted its already thriving mail order business,
giving Canberra the title of the X-rated capital of Australia.

The Federal inquiry was
set up to look at the effectiveness of the legislation, the adequacy of
the present classification system and the lucrative ACT trade. Among other
things, it will recommend either an absolute ban on the sale of X-rated
videos or a relaxation of the classification system (although it cannot
force changes to State laws).

Most submissions to the
committee have dealt with the question of the effect on children of exposure
to pornography and violence. But the hearings have also provided a window
into the sex industry generally which, despite the vigilance of the Mary
Whitehouses and Fred Niles, is as up-front as ever.

Estimates vary widely
but, according to importer and wholesaler John Lark, spokesman for the
Adult Video Industry Association (AVIA), annual turnover in Australia
from the sale of sex "paraphernalia" such as videos, sex aids, books,
literature and lingerie would be close to $50 million - of which at least
half comes from the sale and hire of blue movies.

There are 100 or more
retail outlets selling sex products around Australia as well as the mail
order trade which uses certain low-brow newspapers and magazines to advertise
its wares.

Sex shops change hands
regularly but certain names linger on. The Venus adult shops, six in Sydney
and eight in Melbourne, are perhaps the best-known, although owners come
and go. A spokesman for the present owner said the group never talks to
the press.

Another name, which has
been around long enough to establish significant community recognition
and is not so reticent, is the West Australian-based Barbarellas group.
The chain, now 12 years old, operates 10 sex shops mostly in Perth and
markets the Barbarellas line of lingerie which is also sold direct to
women through Tupperware-style parties.

Managing director Peter
Hennessy would not reveal turnover or profit margins, only that Barbarellas
was now a "multi-million-dollar" operation. He says Barbarellas no longer
strictly caters for the seedier clientele, the bread and butter of shops
like Venus, and has found a niche as a supplier of fantasy products to
the middle classes.

As many as 50,000 women
attended Barbarellas lingerie parties last year, he said, and the company's
in-house surveys claim that between 20 and 30 per cent of the WA population
enter a Barbarellas sex shop every year. According to Mr Hennessy, the
Barbarellas' style of marketing has changed public attitudes to sex shops
in WA.

He says he was the first
to market sex paraphernalia to the general community and the first to
advertise on Australian television. The group now sponsors three Australian
Rules teams in Perth as part of its broad-based marketing strategy.

"We try to adopt a fun
rather than sleazy image," said Mr Hennessy. "Our shops are well-lit,
carpeted with piped music. Our ladies are dressed in the kind of uniforms
you'd find on shop assistants in George's. The raincoat brigade won't
come anywhere near us."

So respectable and well-known
is the group in Perth, claims Mr Hennessy, that he is considering floating
his company on the Perth second board to raise capital for expansion beyond
WA. He foresees no trouble attracting investors. The stockmarket crash
has delayed his plans, but he believes the float will go ahead next financial
year.

To round off the float,
Mr Hennessy is negotiating a possible merger with John Lark's wholesale
and import business, Radox Caballero Holdings Pty Ltd, which has an annual
turnover of nearly $5 million.

Public listing would give
the business a level of respectability and credibility not normally associated
with the trade of porn videos and sex aids.

A leading accountancy
firm hired by Radox Caballero to investigate the prospect says the businesses
are viable, although a spokesman would not venture a prediction on its
likely success as a public company. "But the launch (of the prospectus)
would certainly be a lively affair," he said.

However, this is Australia,
not Sweden or Denmark. Regulations and legislation abound at both State
and Federal level - and where there are restrictions on free trade, illegal
activity generally rears its ugly head. The blue movie business is definitely
no exception.

IT is impossible to estimate
accurately the turnover in unclassified and/or pirated blue movies, for
example. Some sources claim trafficking in blue movies is now a multi-million-dollar
business, with a value at least double the estimated $25 million annual
turnover of the strictly legal side of the trade.

Despite tougher fines
for offenders, there is no doubt that pornographic videos, which would
be refused classification by the Censor and therefore prohibited from
sale - films, for example, depicting child sex, coercion, assault or even
murder - are still finding their way onto the market.

John Lark maintains that
the underground trade in unclassified blue movies is relatively "small
and secretive" although the video laws as they stand do not require Customs
officials to systematically check luggage for pornographic tapes.

The bulk of the blue movies
shown in Australia are made in the United States, with a smattering from
the Scandinavian countries. Crime reporter Bob Bottom told the select
committee in 1985 that Mafia figures were involved in the production of
blue movies in the US and that some of these people had visited the ACT
to check out local operations.

"There is obviously an
attempt to bring in unclassifiable material," says Ken Barton, chief Commonwealth
Film Censor. "But it is very difficult to know whether this is done on
a commercial scale."

It seems, however, that
the biggest business is in pirating tapes which have been legally imported
and submitted for classification. By avoiding copyright payments and classification
charges - $245 a tape, says John Lark -these X-rated videos are sold sometimes
at nearly half the normal price.

According to AVIA, 50
per cent of X and R-rated master tapes brought into Australia and classified
will be copied and sold illegally. "If we release a tape, within a week
or two it has been pirated and sold in the marketplace. They just take
off our logo," Mr Lark told the select committee.

However, the bans introduced
by the States have, in fact, meant increased business for companies like
Radox Caballero, one of the largest, if not the largest, importer and
wholesale distributor of X and R-rated videos. Previously based in the
Sydney suburb of Cammeray, Mr Lark's Radox merely shifted its base to
the safe haven of Canberra.

Mr Lark claims his Mature
Media Group Club mailing list has grown from 38,000 to 60,000 members
since 1985 and says his best customers are Queenslanders.

He is one of only two
or three importers who wholesale to sex shops and other mail order houses
as well as selling direct to customers. Radox's main competitors in the
early stages, the major video distributors such as Roadshow, MGM and Warner
Bros, abandoned the X-rated video market after the legislation was implemented
and now earn much of their turnover from R-category videos.

Meanwhile, the joint select
committee has laboriously been sifting through evidence submitted in camera
and at public hearings in an attempt to sort out the legal hotchpotch.
As things stand, for example, the law allows residents of the NSW town
of Queanbeyan to take a short trip to the Canberra suburb of Fyshwick
to buy a blue movie but prevents the sale of the same video at their corner
store.

Religious groups and conservative
MPs have called for a total ban, arguing that is impossible for Canberra
video distributors to stop X-rated videos falling into the hands of under-18-year-olds
when blue videos are sent through the mail.

Others have argued that
X-rated movies should only be allowed to be shown in designated cinemas
where the age of viewers can be more carefully monitored-while keeping
X-rated videos out of the home.

Despite the committee's
wide terms of reference, it can only recommend legislative changes in
the ACT, although it could effectively stop the trade by recommending
a ban on the importation of blue movies.

Dr Klugman, who has probably
seen more sex scenes than the your average porn purveyor, is not keen
to impose further censorship. He says if X was banned, R versions of the
same films would take their place which might"titillate more than the
hard-core". (Most "big"-budget porn films - those costing around $300,000
- are almost always released with a cut-down R version for more general
consumption.

American porn film-makers
often shoot two versions simultaneousely - one camera is simply set close-up
for the explicit X version, another at a more distant angle for the R
version.

Dr Klugman says: "In my
view, X-rated films are just boring because they have no story-line. All
you get is different episodes of sexual intercourse which aren't all that
interesting. My worry is: how much detailed violence should we be allowed
to see?"

The video wholesalers,
keen to improve profitability, have a big stake now in trying to convince
the public that they are legitimate business people.

"The whole industry has
changed," argues John Lark. "The people basically involved in this business
are marketing people and they are tailoring their business for the market.
The underground stuff is not a big market and, besides that, it is highly
illegal. We are dealing with the everyday people. Mum and dad, I guess."

He claims there has been
a softening in attitudes to hard-core movies. Porn film-makers in the
US have taken into account pressure from the feminist lobby, he says,
and are increasingly depicting scenes where men and women are both equal
and "always willing", partners. And because more women are watching the
films - Lark claims 30 per cent of his customers are women and 70 per
cent couples - films are incorporating more complex, "more romantic" story-lines.

"People now don't feel
upset about watching explicit sexual material," he says. "However, if
you bring violence into that category, it becomes offensive.

"The big problem with
the video industry at the moment, as far as I am concerned, is the violence
aspect which is in the R-rated category. That is a very big marketing
product for the majors, Warner Bros, Roadshow and MGM, and is more of
a problem for society than explicit sex. Sex never hurt anybody."

Melbourne's Shy And
Retiring Moguls Of Porn
Paul Robinson

01/17/1993
Sunday Age
Page 9
Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd

Looking more like accountants,
they are the brains behind the Club X bookshop and cinema chains in Melbourne,
Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra and Perth.

The brothers, who grew
up in Lilydale, promoted a rock concert featuring the La De Das in the
early 1970s. They also owned a chain of drive-ins around Victoria before
the advent of color television. Ken, 41, was once a Telecom technician
and Eric, 48, a truckie. Both now drive Chevrolet Camaros, wear expensive
suits and send their children to private schools. They used to drive Rolls-Royces,
but felt the cars attracted too much attention. They are genuinely shy.

The Hills have become
Australia's largest suppliers of pornographic videos. They are directors
of more than 12 companies, which include real estate investment, cinemas,
video sales, book and novelty retail.

They also manufacture
safes and security systems. Four of the companies -Calvista, Silken Hall,
Club X and Kelly Security - have issued shares valued at nearly $400,000,
but both families are estimated to be worth millions.

The Hill brothers travel
overseas regularly to buy stock and conduct business. One of the directors
of Silken Hall - whose offices are at 58 Riley Street, Sydney - is Arie
Van Der Heul, who lives in Zwaluwe, Holland. The group's video distribution
is based at Fyshwick in the ACT, but their mail-order business has closed,
the result of tax and administrative measures imposed by the ACT Government.

These measures have cut
into the Hill group's profitability. The brothers have told politicians
keen to curtail their activities that their business costs amount to more
than $2million a month, a substantial contribution to local economies.

A spokesman for the group
told `The Sunday Age' that the group paid more than $2million in taxes
each year.

The brothers have donated
more than $100,000 to AIDS research. It was their money that secured the
services of the actor Jack Thompson for the anti-AIDS campaign. They invested
more than $200,000 in a series of anti-censorship campaigns. They have
also been generous in their support of a variety of Rotary-backed causes.

A source close to the
family said: ``These guys are very shy, sincere people. They abhor violence.
If they were religious people they would be Quakers. They have a commitment
to anti-censorship and non- violence. Sure it's their business, but they
are committed civil libertarians.''

The principal offices
of the cinema, book and video warehousing arms of the Hill empire are
listed to a brothel at 77 Racecourse Road, North Melbourne, known as Club
77. Five of the brothers' companies, including Shaft Cinemas, operate
from there. The brothel, according to Melbourne City Council records,
is run by Joseph Stanley Sobota. Mr Sobota, 38, and his brother George,
41 - who also gives his address as 58 Riley Street, Sydney - are both
directors of West Savoy Theatres, a Melbourne-based Hill company.

Joseph Sobota, according
to MCC records, used to own a brothel in Anderson Street, West Melbourne.
Seen recently assisting the management of that establishment was Peter
Gordon Richardson, the proprietor of Melbourne's classiest house of ill
repute, the Top of the Town in Flinders Street.

Mr Richardson has been
the doyen of the brothel trade for more than 15 years. When running brothels
was illegal, he managed seven of them through a company called Carroll
Consultancy. He conceded as much in a statement to police about alleged
financial demands being made on him for protection by a former vice squad
detective. The officer, who has since left the force, was cleared of any
wrong-doing at a committal.

Mr Richardson, 44, used
to run the Top of the Town brothel in North Melbourne, which closed several
years ago for zoning reasons. He has traded successfully in several brothels
and has acted on behalf of others in buying and selling businesses.

He is president of the
Brothel Owners Association and is reputed to have done more than any industry
figure to improve the image of Melbourne brothels. This is despite some
damage to his reputation last October when charges that an under-aged
girl was found on the premises at the Top of the Town were proved in Brunswick
Magistrates Court. No conviction was recorded.